


don't use the definitions

by salazarastark



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-02 12:18:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18810772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salazarastark/pseuds/salazarastark
Summary: Jason tells Eleanor a secret he's kept inside himself all this time.





	don't use the definitions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [telm_393](https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/gifts).



> Thank you to Karios for the beta work.

Jason first started skipping school in the eighth grade. He remembers that it was later than everyone else, but his dad told him not to worry, that he was just a late bloomer. The thing is though, he didn’t start skipping school for the same reasons that everyone else did, because they were bored or tired or hungry or high. No, Jason started skipping school just so he could avoid one class, English.

He found it confusing why he even had to take an English class anyway, because he already  _ knew _ English. It was what they all spoke. Why couldn’t they use the time to learn something fun and interesting? And that thought reverberates around his skull for years after Mr. Hartford.

Mr. Hartford was handsome, and Jason knows he was because he remembers all the girls in school giggled over him. Jason remembers aspects of him. Sandy blonde hair. Sparkly green eyes. A big white smile. Tan skin. Tall.

All of it together made someone that Jason  _ knew _ was handsome, but trying to put the pieces together made a pit in his stomach grow and he always got a headache, worse than the kind he got playing PlayStation too long.

Mr. Hartford had liked him a lot.

Mr. Hartford had liked him too much.

Mr. Hartford had pushed Jason up against the desk, turned him around, and fucked him, and the next day Jason cut class and he did that every single day for the rest of the year.

It’s the only class Jason ever got an A in.

*

It’s important to know that Jason never told anyone what Mr. Hartford liked to do with him. Jason doesn’t know  _ why _ that’s important, but he knows it is.

He’s thought about it.  _ Really _ hard. He’s wanted to tell Pillboi for years. He can’t count the number of times they would get high and there would be this  _ moment _ when Jason felt he could tell, but something would always ruin it. A phone would ring, Pillboi would fall asleep and keep snoring, or the words would get stuck in Jason’s throat and he couldn’t push them out.

He’s never thought about Donkey Doug. He knew that he would never understand. He would make things worse, but Jason didn’t know how. Maybe he would try to hurt Mr. Hartford.

Maybe he wouldn’t do anything at all.

Jason didn’t know, and he didn’t want to.

So he buried those feelings deep inside him, buried the memories, and he does his best to act like it never happened, and for the most part, he succeeds.

(That’s a lie. He still has nightmares, remembers Mr. Hartford pressing him up against the wall, forcing him to bend over the desk, getting Jason over to his house and onto his bed. He remembers Mr. Hartford’s laughter most of all.)

Ultimately, it’s Eleanor he tells.

She and Jason are watching the sunset on the beach, and it’s beautiful. Jason wishes he has the words to talk about, wishes he could say what exactly the sky is making him feel right now.

She has her head on Jason’s shoulder, and he feels this sense of  _ peace _ over him. Between the sky and the waves and the sand beneath his toes, he feels like nothing could ever ruin this moment.

“Eleanor?” he asks, and she hums a response. “Has anything really bad ever happened to you?”

“Depends,” she replies, her voice sleepy. “Define ‘bad.’”

Jason thinks that she and Chidi have been spending too much time together, because Jason doesn’t want to  _ define _ the bad, he wants. . . . He wants. . . . 

He wants not to be alone in the bad.

“Has anyone-?” he stops, mouth open. This is going to change how Eleanor thinks of him, he knows it. Every time she looks at him from now on, she’s going to think of what he’s going to tell her.

But he doesn’t care, not anymore. At least Jason won’t be the only person who knows, the only person it cuts at.

“Has anyone ever hurt you?”

The waves are deafening and Eleanor is still next to him, far too still.

“Jason,” she begins, but he cuts her off.

“Don’t make me define hurt,” he begs.

She nods against his shoulder. “Okay,” she says, her voice full of tears, but she’s trying to hide them, Jason can tell, he’s not  _ stupid _ .

Except maybe he is, because if he wasn’t, he probably wouldn’t be living with this story, he would have gotten far away the moment Mr. Hartford touched him.

She takes a deep breath. “No one’s ever . . . hurt me. At least not in the way you’re asking me.”

(And this is why Jason thinks he told Eleanor. Chidi or Tahani wouldn’t have realized at first what he’s asking, he would have had to  _ tell _ them. But Eleanor’s smart and she knows people and how they work. She doesn’t make him tell.)

Jason nods, unsure how he’s feeling beyond the pit in his stomach growing with every minute. It’s good she doesn’t know. It’s bad Jason doesn’t have someone who’ll understand.

Somehow, without Jason realizing it, she’s gripping his hand tightly, giving him that lifeline he  _ needs _ . He’s still floating away in his head, but she’s keeping him attached to the ground.

“You don’t have to tell me more,” she continues, (and another reason for why Eleanor, Chidi and Tahani would have wanted him to  _ talk _ ), “but I’m here if you need me.”

Jason doesn’t doubt that. Eleanor is always there, always present. He doesn’t know why she feels so right in his life, so important. He only just met her a couple of weeks ago, but he knows in his soul that she’ll figure this out.

“He was my teacher,” Jason starts, and he lets out a sob, one he doesn’t know he’s had inside him all this time.

(He never really cried about it, did he? Always pushed down deep inside.)

Somehow he ends up with his head in Eleanor’s lap, still holding her hand. His other hand is gripping her knee tightly, and her other hand is in his hair. “I was fourteen.”

“I didn’t like it.” That’s the most important thing, that’s what she needs to know the most. “I didn’t want it.”

“I believe you,” she whispers, and those three little words break the dam and the next thing Jason knows, he’s  _ sobbing _ . He turns around, presses her face into her stomach, wraps his arms around her tight. One hand is still in his hair, the other rubbing soothing strokes down the sides of his chest.

“I believe you, buddy.”

*

He doesn’t know how long he stays in Eleanor’s arms, but it’s long enough for the sky to turn from the bright orange and purples to the deep blue that comes just before the black settles in.

He turns over so he’s no longer hugging her chest so tightly, stares up at sky and the sprinkle of stars that are beginning to appear.

“I’m not sure I’m the best person to talk to this about,” Eleanor says softly.

Jason isn’t sure if he is either. The words are like marbles in his mouth, and he doesn’t want to say anything else about this. But there’s a question that plays in his mind, one that he can’t help but to ask.

“Do you think that he ever wished he hadn’t hurt me?”

Jason knows he’ll never know. Mr. Hartford moved away from Jacksonville long ago, and Jason has never wanted to know what happened to him. But he always wondered, when the nightmares kept him up, if Mr. Hartford had his own.

“I don’t know,” Eleanor tells him. “He might.”

But he hears the doubt in her voice. He agrees with her. Someone who could do what Mr. Hartford did to him probably wouldn’t regret it.

There’s another question that enters his mind, and this time he allows it to leave his mouth. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

He sees her head shake, even in the dark. “No. No, I don’t. I’m not the best with this emotional crap, I’m literal human garbage about it, but I can tell you that the only person who had  _ anything _ wrong with them was your teacher. No one does shit like to a fourteen year old unless they’re fucked up in the head.”

He takes in a shaky breath and attempts to smile up at her. He doesn’t think he comes out right, because her eyes just look at him with a lot of emotions, and Jason thinks that for someone who says that aren’t very good at feelings, Eleanor really lets them show in her eyes. They’re filled with pain and understanding and something that Jason thinks might be pity, but he’s too exhausted to care right now.

“Don’t tell Chidi and Tahani.” He’s not ready for them to know yet, doesn’t know if he ever will be.

She shakes her head. “Never. If anyone else ever finds out about it, it’ll be from you.” She says it with a lot of certainty, but she also turns her face away so Jason can’t read her eyes. “But if you ever need support, I can be there.”

She sounds embarrassed, but Jason knows it’s just because she doesn’t know how to care about other people without feeling weak. He knows what it means that she’s even offering.

He feels a strange sense of lightness in his heart as she continues to pet his hair and listen to the waves crashing on the beach as the sky fills with stars.


End file.
